chapter 4 don't play with your soul (work in progress)

the following day Daniel was watching the white sun inside him, while more white strands of soul energy were offering themselves to it when he realized he could control it a little, forming a small tentacle that could extend from the white sun to a few centimeters out of his body

like any good 18-months-old kid, Daniel immediately started playing with it, without realizing how dangerous that was, and when he noticed that the tentacle could feel things and pass through objects, he immediately decided to use it to watch what the funny stuff inside his ball was

as the tentacle entered all Daniel sensed was his tentacle absorbing something from the ball before collapsing and losing blood from his nose, eyes, and ears

at this moment in the next room, the couple felt that Daniel was hurt and rushed inside directly, just to find Vincent who shouldn't even be at home had already arrived

after failing to assess the situation, without losing a second Vincent transferred the entire room on top of the triangular table, in the room where Andrea's real body always was, since as the protector of this galaxy her duty was to keep it safe and guard against invaders, her true body would always be found here, and as needed she would send out clones

in a certain sense this room usually used for the highest level discussion about the federation, was also Andrea's office

Vincent said "Andrea I need your help" after appearing

it has to be known that entering like this was very rude but Andrea didn't mind since she heard the emergency in his voice

she took her aunt form, directly appearing in front of Daniel, and soon after rays of white light went from her hands to Daniel's body, healing and scanning him but the results were beyond her imagination

surprised Andrea said "I can't believe it, he already has a white soul and somehow he forcibly used it to absorb the soul spark in that sphere to make it his subordinate, at his level, this shouldn't be possible, but he just expended 99% of his soul energy and did it anyway, the only reason he's still alive it's because that soul spark doesn't have any willpower so the process went smoothly, anyway his soul it's not damaged it's just sapped, he should recover completely after spending a couple of days in the sunlight cultivating"

with that said, Andrea waved her hand and the room moved to make the big sun of this solar system shine directly on the table, she was thinking that even if he couldn't cultivate while unconscious being exposed to the sun would still have a beneficial effect because of the nature of the cultivation method

but as soon as the sun started to shine directly on Daniel, countless white strands of soul energy started entering his body fueling the almost empty soul, without him even being conscious, till now, Daniel had cultivated with whatever passed through the atmosphere and the dimensional barrier, but now he was directly absorbing energy straight from the source, making it several times faster, soon later for the first time in what felt like forever, Andrea had a big O on her mouth as she stared at him without blinking

at the same time, Phoebe and Joseph who were worried sick till a moment ago could finally feel some relief and asked "how is it possible for an 18 month old baby to have already started to cultivate and even to be at the white soul level, he hasn't even started talking yet"

Vincent responded full of pride "there are some races who are born at the true core stage, there's no need to be surprised, he's a specter after all, even with a disadvantage he can't be judged like everyone else"

at this point, they saw Andrea's frozen appearance, and soon after Vincent waved his hand in front of her eyes, Andrea just partially out of her shock muttered her thoughts out loud without realizing "he did it subconsciously, probably liked the chant, but this doesn't explain how is he doing it now while unconscious, unless the chant his resonating directly from his soul but how?"

then Andrea turned her eyes and realized that everyone was staring at her, after a fake cough she said "he is fine now, he should regain conscience soon"

pointing at the ball she continued "from what I can see that's just a cluster of formatted nanites, they probably developed a soul spark because of the high amount of various energies in your dimension, evolving into a new type of lifeform, or at the very least one I have never seen before"

Vincent asked "is it dangerous?" he was blaming himself, if he knew something like this could happen he would have never let Daniel play with it

after thinking for a while Andrea responded "no they are like bee drones without a purpose, but now they found their queen or better king, the nanite's soul it's now a part of Daniel's, not only are they not dangerous to him, they can't live without him, so it's actually a good thing, especially since he can't cultivate they can defend him, I also heard that babies mature fast when they have to care of a pet, so he just lacks the knowledge and maturity to control them and avoid them being dangerous for everyone else, for now, the best thing would be to let them stay in the hazardous materials sphere, after all, there is no chance of them breaking out of it and he can slowly learn and get used to it"

Phoebe started to laugh and said "he sure takes after his father, seems yesterday he was born and now he already has his own army"

Phoebe didn't know how terrible the replicators were, after all, it was a very short war, she is almost ten thousands year old now, but during that war, she was still a kid, without knowing how terrible it was, and how many died in those few years, she decided to crack a joke, but when nobody was laughing she became embarrassed

Joseph explained "it's not really the same thing, a dozen cuddly little animals can't consume a planet's resources till it collapses, anyway, since he has a white soul it's time for him to go to school, but since he's too young, I think he should be homeschooled"

Phoebe replied "obviously he's not even two years old yet"

and Vincent said "there is a lot to consider, the important thing is that we should go back now, Andrea's job requires great attention and we have already sinned barging here like this"

Andrea said "don't worry after all he's sort of my apprentice, this is something I should do"

after a few more pleasantries everyone went back home and between the couple, another war began

at sunrise the next day, in the kitchen of the specter castle Phoebe and Joseph were still fighting

Phoebe said in an angry tone "I can teach him, why should he use one of those virtual reality schools? he can go to a real school when he grows up!"

Joseph with an equally angry tone responded "you can teach him everything you want, but when it comes to school I know better, the virtual academy it's the best, after all, it's been tweaked and perfected for thousands of years, and it's tailored to give every student the basic knowledge he needs, we use it to choose candidates, teaching is my job, where are your qualifications as a teacher"

the discussion went on for at least 3 hours with no sign of stopping, in the meantime, Daniel had the time to regain consciousness and fall asleep again before they had a chance to talk to him, even after refilling his soul energy, the body was still tired from the strain the abrupt depletion and the pain had brought to it

as the Sun completed his rising, Vincent decided to throw the couple out, he couldn't stand their bickering anymore, and since he had time, he decided to spend it with his grandson to make sure Daniel understood and didn't do anything that reckless again

after a while, Daniel woke up, and he felt a presence by his side, looking in that direction he saw the ball, but the stuff inside wasn't swirling anymore, dejected, as he was about to use a tentacle to see what happened when he was interrupted by Vincent arrival

Vincent entered and said seriously "you gave us quite the scare"

Daniel looked straight at him with his big cyan eyes and asked pointing at the ball "I broke it?"

Vincent was surprised, this kid had never said anything before nor cried, they were even worried he had issues, and now he was talking just like that

Vincent shook off the surprise quite quickly and asked "since when can you talk? anyway, it's not broken, they are waiting for your orders"

Daniel looked lost in his thought, but then he managed to communicate with the nanites and made an understanding expression before asking "what are they?" since they were formatted they knew nothing, not even what they were

Vincent replied "tiny little machines called nanites" while hiding his surprise at how well Daniel was talking, he articulated and understood things he shouldn't understand

but Daniel simply said "what an ugly name" before getting lost in his own thoughts again

a lot of things had started to make sense for Daniel because of the nanites, when they were just empty machines they were useless, but when Daniel absorbed their soul spark a connection was created, that balanced the soul energy he cultivated, with the nanite's soul, and also connected their conscience

his energy had ignited the nanite's soul bringing it to white level giving them some basic intelligence that mixed with their nature as machines gave them a terrifying ability to process and store information, and of course, sharing them with Daniel

through his senses and memories, it was a piece of cake for the nanites to learn perfectly a language, after all, Daniel had 18 months worth of various random conversation's and goodnight stories in his memory so he already perfectly understood part of it

this balance could be really dangerous, Daniel's identity hadn't developed yet, so he didn't have the willpower to resist soul corruption, but in this case, it was the best thing that could happen since the nanites were machines and didn't have any desires or emotions

for the nanites, the only important thing was serving the central hub, and that was now Daniel, that with the soul bond, had an even deeper connection then the original hub ever had with the nanites, at this time Daniel could feel this connection but he was still unable to understand it, because of his lack of knowledge

VIncent asked "have you understood?" he had just finished talking, but Daniel was distracted by the changes he had and didn't listen to a word, just as he was about to ask Vincent, all he said was transferred to him by the nanites in less than a second

Vincent had started with a serious tone and said "their name it's not important" and after a pause for dramatic effect he added "what you did was very reckless you almost died playing with your soul like that"

since Daniel seemed to understand now, Vincent decided it was better to make him really understand how dangerous his behavior was "if it wasn't for your aunt Andrea we wouldn't have known what to do"

then seeing that Daniel didn't respond Vincent thought "maybe I was too harsh" and calmed his tone a bit, before saying "while playing you absorbed the soul of the nanites so they now depend on you to survive, but they are very powerful and for now we will keep them in the hazardous materials sphere, don't even try to ask to let them out, and as soon as your mom and dad decide how, you will have to start going to school"